Lorna Beatriz
Otero (b. 1979) I am a multimedia artist that explores the quotidian
experiences of the woman of today; her roles, idiosyncrasies and her moral
and civil responsibilities. From a historicist standpoint I delve into the
canons of Puerto Rican as well as universal painting to uncover instances in
which the struggle that has characterized being a woman is made manifest.
My emerging career is focused on the iconic, the symbolic or significance of
customs associated with femininity. In my paintings predominate a formal
deconstruction that highlights biographical details (created or real) of the
subject, those who are represented moving throughout a space that has been
obviously constructed. This space is the platform from whence the view of
the forces at work can be better seen, all the madness, the desire, the
frustration or satisfaction as well as the unforgiving public sphere of
opinions. In my most recent work I seek to explore broad themes; the
representation of women in the history of art and the roles that women play
in contemporary society. I utilize as symbols the real feminine beauty
behind the cosmetic, the fancy dress and social classes. I try to project
all the natural and superficial characteristics that society drives you to
assume. To do this I employ the mediums of painting, photography and
sculptural installations, all to better illustrate and emphasize true
feminine beauty and womanhood. In this proposal I include five bodies of
work, including the series titled Monster Women, CHIComaticayans, Multiple
Personality Disorder Series, Campechanas and the Kate Mythologies. These
series are connected in my initially exposed desire to explore the female
social form and the representation of different angles and the nature of
that aspect of life. An example of this is the series titled Monster Women,
which is a performance work that has been photographically documented that
speaks of mysterious and fictitious characters such as the vampire, the
monster from Frankenstein, the werewolf, the mummy and the classical green
witch. I appropriate their physical traits and personalities and integrate
them in a mainstream work environment for them to try to blend in. The idea
is to project and reflect so that we can see how we see each other and how
we behave in our daily lives. Sometimes we are like these beings, benevolent
or malevolent according to the circumstances. We are all driven by our
ambitions, created by society and the corporate sphere and fed to us through
the mass media. The result is a power driven game of how we should be, how
we should behave and how we need to be “the best” according the canon. The
CHIComaticayans is a body of work that includes both sculpture and painting
that appropriates the image of the Onomaticayans, characters from the
blockbuster film Avatar. The movie plot narrates the struggle for power and
the human intervention in the lives of these extraterrestrial beings that
are sought and hunted to turn their way of life and their environment into a
lucrative site for mining. My interpretation of the possible outcome for
these beings, had they failed to liberate themselves from foreign human
interests, is an Onomaticayan contaminated by our “chic” lifestyle. Its
resulting image is a projection of their industrialization and
commercialization and their manipulation through the same mass media that
shapes human activity today. The series titled Multiple Personality Disorder
is also a performance work documented in photography of what appear to be
seven women, represented by myself, each with different styles,
personalities, and professions. Each lives in a world, whether real or
imaginary, where they feel incomplete and misunderstood. This body of work
presents the possible double or even multiple numbers of lives women can
sometimes lead simultaneously, whether it is because of social, cultural or
personal convention. It portrays the preoccupation of how we project
ourselves onto the world with all the demands made from women; how women
must be as professional and compete with the world and other women in order
to reach that prized and absurd state of sexual and aesthetic perfection.
The series titled Campechanas is a series of paintings utilizing textiles
and a variety of painting techniques. In this series I seek to liberate
these women in Jose Campeche’s painting, in their time repressed entirely by
colonial Puerto Rican societal standards. I project this by altering their
dress and intensifying their expression to convey their sexuality and their
possible desires to run away from their idiosyncratic routine. In the series
titled Kate Mythologies I use painting and glass and bead work over canvas
to represent the scandalous myths of the ancient Greek goddesses, their
veneration and their clearly capricious behavior. I mean to express the way
in which they, through their beauty, created controversy and social
upheaval. To do this I juxtapose their ancient myths with the peculiar
beauty of another scandalous woman, the super model Kate Moss.